Platonists think you can talk meaningfully about “crime” or “Christianity” or “republicanism” in the abstract, cut off from the actual actions of living men and women. Aristotelians think you cannot separate the singer from the song – crime is what criminals do, Christianity is what Christians do, republicanism is what republicans do.

Then moves swiftly to the sting in the tail:

That means that if republicans are murderous thugs then republicanism is what they do and nothing else – it does not exist in pristine purity somewhere else. So if republicans are good people – in the sense that my grandfather’s selfless generation were good people, in the sense that the brethren in Bandon are good people – this will animate the abstraction called ‘republicanism’ and bring it to vibrant life, but only for as long as republicans are virtuous.